BrewDog Declares End to Beer Strength Wars, and more "Historic Ale" from Scotland

Oh, yeah--you all DID figure out this was an April Fool's joke, right?

Now that it's been publicized, I can now let loose the news that James Watt leaked to me during his visit to Max's last week.

He and partner Martin Dickie have decided to declare an end to the ever-ratcheting "beer strength wars" by brewing the beer to end it all: a 100% alcohol-by-volume beer.  The beer, to be named "M.A.D." for the acronym for "mutually assured destruction" (the Cold War tactic of increasing armament and parity in missile destructive power), will be released in a limited edition release of 200 limited, numbered 90-ml bottles to be auctioned in a special "Dutch auction" in June with a starting price of a mere £1,500 ($2,250) each.

"We acknowledge that the price is expensive, but it really reflects our costs and efforts," said Watt in an e-mail to me confirming the release.  "We had to contract with a large pool of migrant hop pickers from the South of England to root through the concentrate and individually pick out any remaining molecules of water, lest the batch not end the record for all time.  Besides which, isn't the price worth it to drink such an affirmable record breaker?  History has shown that people will pay for the privilege of drinking the strongest beer available, and we are honoured to be the ones to bring it to an eager public, and to bring the title back to Scotland once and for all, never to fall to those pretenders across the water again."

Details of the beer, along with a pending all-brewing, no-distillation 30% beer brewed in answer to American brewers who decried the freeze-distillation technique used by the brewery in past beers as "cheating," are available in the brewery's latest blog post at http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article.php?id=AprilFirst .

Meanwhile, from Bruce of Williams Brothers, the makers of Fraoch Heather Ale, Kelpie Seaweed Ale, and others, comes word that they are brewing up another "historic ale" recipe and relegating Grozet gooseberry-wheat beer to "regular beer" status.  Look for Capercaillie, a new ale featuring a dose of capercaillie in the brewing, to be on store shelves this summer, helped in no small part with an ad campaign in Scotland featuring music by by the Scots Gaelic band Capercaillie.....   More details when I get time to write up the last couple bar visits and tours..........